MAP04: Sol (Sunlust)

MAP04: Sol is the fourth map of Sunlust. It was designed by Zachary Stephens (Ribbiks) and Daniel Jakobsson (dannebubinga), and uses the music track "Desk Lamp" composed by Stuart Rynn.

Essentials
There are three keycards on the level. Each one can be found in any wanted order.

Take the shotgun and dispatch the imps in the room. Press the orange switch, and kill two sergeants to the left and right and one demon if present. Enter the ambush to the left of the orange switch in which one of the sergeants was and press the second orange switch. This will open two ambush rooms with enemies. Deal with them and press the third switch in one room. The metallic bar will lower letting you visit the whole level. Now, decide what key you wish to collect first.

Red key

From the starting position, head left (south). In the outside, descend down. Beware a trap behind you. When you reach the end, notice a metal block placed next to a red torch. It conceals a button, so walk around it and press that button. Force the spawned enemies while the rock with key is sinking. Take the red keycard when you can and backtrack to the central hall.

Blue key

Head west from the starting position. In the west there is a cascade of lava in the middle of the room. Go around the cascade and face north. You will see a staircase. Go there. The blue card is just in front of you. Take it. A strange mechanism will start working, and the floor will lower. Press the switch on the rear of the raised platform. The mechanism works again but the floor will raise instead. An enemy group will spawn here. You may kill them or simply run away from (your main objective is complete).

Yellow key

Head west from the starting position. Go south from the lava cascade. There will be a room in which yellow key is visible. Go around central pillar. Kill a revenant/arch-vile and press the switch. Prepare to fight, as there are four ambushes. Two are right here in this room and another two are in the previous room where the lava cascade is. Recommendation: provoke an infight between arachnotrons, mancubi and revenants, so you will complete the objective faster.

Return to the room where you pressed the switch. Turn right (or left relatively to the pressed button) and enter the compartment where there were other enemies. Press the switch there and the key will be accessible. Walk around the central pillar and take the key.

Last step

When all keys are collected you are ready to complete the level. Go to the center of the map and face north. You will see a long panel with three switches. Each switch requires a respective key. Press all of them and the metal bars to the left will be unlocked allowing you to enter a subsequent room. The enemies in this room that wait on their own platforms will not be alerted until you press the only button in this room. Press this button (located in the other end of the room) and the bars ahead of you will start lowering. However, the monsters will be alerted. Kill them but be fast. Other monsters should appear soon in the room regardless whether you killed the previous ones or not. When the bars are finally lowered, you can step on the exit portal.

Secrets

 * 1) Once you enter or leave the south western room in which the yellow key is found, a lift with a soul sphere atop of it is activated. It can either lower or raise depending on what height does it currently stand. Being in the yellow key room, when the lift is at the top, head to the central hall and it will lower. Take the soul sphere.  (sector 432)
 * 2) To the left of the lift, mentioned in secret #1, there is a room filled with lava. Press the skull switch to the left before entering this room, and the stairs will be built allowing you to walk in the room safely. You can obtain a rocket launcher and two rockets but it is not counted as secret. Being in this room, run and drop from the balcony. Take a single armor bonus here to make the secret area accessible. Press the button and you will be immediately teleported to the room with backpack and lava cascade. Head back to the room where there is the first cascade (not transparent). If you carefully look, you can notice that an area of the secret is opened (a sigil in the shape of the sun is there). Go there. Obtain a plasma gun and cells.  (sector 872)

Bugs
A light amplification visor (thing 92) is placed on the top of a rock in the garden area where the red key is found, surrounded by ledges that would softlock the player out of bounds if dropped down, suggesting that it is not meant to be reached. The only cheat-less way to obtain it is by using an extremely dangerous double arch-vile jump, so getting 100% items on the level is reserved for the daring.

Some rock walls beneath the starry sky are protected with invisible barriers so that players or monsters cannot fly over them, and some are not. A single arch-vile jump is sufficient to reach sector 305 in the garden, or sector 625 at the yellow key, allowing access outside of the intended playable map.

A multiplayer-only box of rockets (thing 355) in the wall west of the yellow key has a minor visual bug where it will instantly snap up to the top of the descending rock face when the ambush is triggered.

Current records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on September 21, 2022.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: